Billy's Balkanization Blog

Hands Up, Don’t Take My Peace Prize!

After dragging White motorists out of their vehicles and beating them in racially motivated attacks from Milwaukee to Chicago, and chanting “pigs in a blanket, fry’em up like bacon” to the police protecting them while they protested, to looting, vandalizing, and arson, clearly no single group have been greater advocates for peace than Black Lives Matter, right?

Every year the Sydney Peace Foundation bestows their Global Peace Prize on extraordinary people who advocate for “true and lasting peace” by ending “war and violent conflict” through addressing “deep injustices and structural inequality.”

Previous years have seen such individuals as Noam Chomsky, Hans Blix and Archbishop Desmond Tutu receive the esteemed prize.

But this year the award is taking a different direction, and rather than being given to a single person, it is being awarded to an entire movement for the first time.

And the winner of the 2017 Global Peace Prize goes to…

Drum roll…

Black Lives Matter.

Black Lives Matter, the movement against racial inequality and police violence in the US which began as a powerful hashtag and became a global rallying cry, will be the 2017 recipient of the Sydney Peace Prize – the first time the often-controversial award has gone to a movement and not an individual.

The prize recognises the work of the amorphous racial justice movement that exists under the catch-all moniker, but has nevertheless managed to unite activists from around the world, including in Australia.

…

The Sydney Peace Prize jury’s citation for this year’s winners applauded the movement “for building a powerful movement for racial equality, courageously reigniting a global conversation around state violence and racism. And for harnessing the potential of new platforms and power of people to inspire a bold movement for change at a time when peace is threatened by growing inequality and injustice.”

But as Louder With Crowder points out, peace is not exactly how one would describe the activities engaged in and supported by Black Lives Matter:

It’s like people don’t have internet access. Memories. Basic motor functions. If they did, they’d be able to use the digits sticking out of their hands to peck a few letters into The Google. Just to verify if Black Lives Matter is worthy of an award bestowment. Like a kind of “vetting” process, if you will. Since the Sydney Peace Foundation lacks finger privilege, I did the search for them.

If this is what the Sydney Peace Foundation considers champions of peace, I’d hate to see what they think war is.

In a world where former U.S. President Barrack Obama is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for doing absolutely nothing and then subsequently orchestrating campaigns that have led to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people across the world it would make perfect sense for the Sydney Peace Foundation to award a similar prize to an organization whose immediate membership and loosely based offshoots advocate for racial segregation, violent protest, and the killing of police officers.

About Billy:

An author of both fiction and nonfiction books, Billy Roper is a former high school and junior high History, Civics, Economics, and Geography teacher. He has been a candidate for public office, a lifelong political activist, leader, and spokesman. Mr. Roper has a Bachelor's degree in History and Political Science and a Master of Liberal Arts degree in History with a specialty in Anthropology. He currently resides with his wife, stepson, and other animals in what will become New America. Mr. Roper may be reached through e-mail at roper_billy@yahoo.com.